


In Search of a Cause

by dragonofdispair



Series: On Causes [4]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Bluestreak, BAMF Prowl, Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship/Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-03-01 04:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2760062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Prowl and Bluestreak save the galaxy from Decepticons. You'd think the galaxy would be grateful, but instead Nova Corps keeps trying to arrest them for war crimes. Go figure.</p><p>OR: A buddy-comedy version of Indiana Jones IN SPAAACE! but with two giant alien robot war criminals instead of a gainfully employed archaeologist-looter. Because Decepticons are totally the same as Nazis and Bluestreak is still a morality pet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel / continuation of my oneshot Without a Cause which was about a Decepticon version of Prowl. It was fairly short, but some things may not make sense without reading that first. Also, the tf-bunny-farm is a horrible place to just go look for ideas. Blame that for the occasional bout of wacky dialogue (and the GOTG crossover in the first place…).

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.

 

Once upon a time, Cybertron was a relatively peaceful planet. I say relatively because had Cybertron been truly peaceful, 'bots like me would never had been created. Now, I don't view my own creation as a bad thing, per see, but given my current situation, I believe I could be forgiven for wishing that my home planet had been a bit more, ah, diplomatic with our neighbors a less prepared to kick them in their organic teeth. Not that it was a bad policy at the time.

But then thousands of vorns of devastating civil war practically killed our home planet, scattered our militaries into easily picked off groups searching for the Allspark, and reduced our numbers to the point that we became easy prey for these new upstart organic species that had suddenly taken our place as the masters of the galaxy. Ultimately this lead to my current uncomfortable situation --

 "So what do we have, Corpseman?"

 "Transformer. Energy resonance scans identify it as the one called 'Prowl'. An Autobot, which only means that slavery and deliberate genocide aren't anywhere on its list of war crimes. We caught it hacking into the main military servers on Xandar."

 -- which was caught and held captive by Nova Corps. Seriously. It was embarrassing.

I decided to blame Megatron. And Starscream.

After all, if Megatron had only been willing to negotiate with his thrice-damned, over clocked glitch spawn of a brother once the senate had been eradicated the war would have been over thousands of vorns ago and we'd still be in control of this corner of the universe. With a rallying cry like "freedom is the right of all sentient beings", the glitch spawn wouldn't have been able to outright refuse peace overtures without looking like the complete hypocrite he is. 

If Megatron is to blame for the overall state of our race and our much-reduced place on the galactic stage, then I blame Starscream for my specifically being here because if he hadn't been such a compulsively treacherous glitch and betrayed me the orn Praxus was razed to rubble, I'd still be a fragging Decepticon and engaging in _deliberate genocide_ rather than chained up waiting for a rescue and ignoring these two squishies as they blather on about my impressive (to them) list of war crimes. Apparently a hundred and forty-four vorns is enough time to rack up a few charges whatever your faction. I flicked my door-panels dismissively; they glanced at me, then back down to their computer just as dismissive.

Dismiss-- How _dare_ \-- I'd show them an _impressive_ _list_ _of_ _war_ _crimes_ if only… I stripped a gear in my transmission in annoyance, attracting a worried look from the severely dressed older Xandaran with a stupid looking purely decorative crown/helmet thing on his head.

"Are you certain it's secured, Corpsman?"

The other alien, a pretty generic Xandaran dressed in the standard NovaCorps excuse for armor, looked up from his computer console and regarded me critically. "As certain as anything, Sir. Those restraints are Asguardian make, designed to hold eldjôtunn, and as long as it's in that inhibitor field it won't be using its comm systems or any of its weapons."

The elder alien narrowed his eyes at me. You'd think he didn't trust me or something. "I admit I'm more worried about a rescue than a break out. These things don't often travel alone."

"We've scanned every vehicle in the city, and we've enacted a vehicle lock down. No vehicles or ships entering the city without being scanned." Which wouldn't keep a pretender-class infiltrator, a drone-class mini spy, or a kronoformer-class stowaway from rescuing me. Not all of my kind are vehicle sized killing machines. Just my luck that I haven't even seen a bot of of any of those classes in a hundred vorns. I'd have liked to show them the price of that particular brand of arrogance. "If it has a partner, it's in no position to enact a rescue."

I smirked, and the man narrowed his eyes more. "I want extra precautions taken anyway, Corpsman. This is a very delicate situation."

"Of course, Sir."

What those precautions may have been, he didn't get the chance to say. An armor piercing cap exploded against the supposedly indestructible glass and sent shrapnel everywhere, blowing its payload through the window. The round lodged itself in the far wall and spewed a thick, bluish gas, setting off shrill alarms throughout the building. As the Nova Corps officers and guards started coughing and falling into their drugged comas, my sensors automatically analyzed the vapor: it was a complicated chemical harmless to my systems, colloquially called _Narcojet_. A commonly available sedative, delivered via a Cybertonian long-range sniper's missile pod. There was a disadvantage to being in the largest building in the city: snipers. Granted hitting a specific window from the distant mountains that were the closest line of sight to this floor was beyond the skills of most snipers these organic upstarts had to deal with, but Cybertonian snipers are in a class all their own.

And Bluestreak was in a class above even that. He showed it with a pair of particle beam shots that hit the two targets the size of one of my fingers, vaporizing controls for the inhibitor field and the controls holding these ridiculously elaborate chains closed, electricity crackling and shorting out several more systems in the room including the lights..

I glared red optics at the two Xandarans still fighting for consciousness, calculating. I weighed the consequences of leaving them alive to pursue us, vs killing them now. Either way, Nova Corps would continue chasing us and I was no one's _prey_. I should kill these lesser creatures, this pretender-Prime, if only for the offense of believing me such, but I decided it wasn't worth the piteous _look_ Bluestreak would have in his optics when we reunited. Instead of smashing their squishy guts into paste, I collected up the spent round and flung myself out of the window.

Now… I'm not an air frame. Not a seeker, a shuttle, or a cyclo-craft. I'm a tough, medium armored military ground car with a top-end sensor suite, a couple of useful stealth mods, enough internal support on my struts to consider ramming into other vehicles a viable combat tactic, and one of the best tactical processors ever manufactured by a Cybertronian assembly line. Which was why when we were on that one planet where _all_ the hover cars compatible with our frame-types had flight-grade repulsorlifts, I made sure Bluestreak and I both _saved the Pit-damned specs._

 

_._

_._

 

(tbc…)

 

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.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prowl and Bluestreak's default (b/c robots in disguise y'know are often disguised) vehicle forms are Buirk'alor-class airspeeders. Yes I know those are from Star Wars. Don't care; they're cool, besides flying cars are MCU cannon (Transformer!Lola would be awesome), this just makes them alien flying cars.


	2. CHAPTER ONE

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.

 

I don't care what sort of metaphysical _slag_ organics believe about becoming 'one with their vehicle', nothing but _nothing_ out drives a Cybertronian. Of course there were about ninety of them, just one of me, and they had spark-energy scanners, so, well… yay them. Difficult, but not impossible. Still it took five trans-scanned disguise switches and a dozen flaming wrecks (remember: ramming _is_ a viable combat tactic) before I successfully pulled a bait and switch, sending them careening after some clueless sports car while I slunk away as a horribly maintained miniature cargo hauler.

I crossed their "vehicle lock down" by the simple expedient of waiting until the dark shift when most Xandarans went into recharge, hacking a couple of cameras to loop their footage, then stepping over the low wall that defined the outer edge of the city. Sometimes the simplest tactics really were the best. No vehicle exiting the city, no chance of being identified by a spark-scanner. Of course when Nova Corp got around to physically searching the wall, they'd see the prints I left in the soft ground, but it couldn't be helped. That wouldn't be until they finished rescanning every vehicle in the city again. Probably.

The other reason I wasn't worried about the pede-prints: Once outside the city, I switched back to the air-car both Bluestreak and I used as our default vehicle forms and flew away. No more prints to be tracked by. I stayed low to keep off of air-traffic radar, and under cover to avoid satellite imaging. Not that I had the energy to gain much altitude anyway. Seven vehicle form changes in less than two Xandaran days. Only a few joors. Primus, I was ready to fall into recharge right where I was, but I needed to get back to Bluestreak.

With luck, the solar energon collector he was sparkling-sitting would have produced a few extra cubes. I wasn't going to be critically low until the orn was through, at least, but we weren't going to be leaving the planet until I'd refueled.

I didn't rest on the drive back to the rendezvous. There were almost fourteen Xandar day-night cycles to a Cybertronian orn, and it only took five to get there, so I didn't need it. Yet.

Bluestreak was there when I arrived. He and I are both the same basic model -- Praxan light-weight military -- so with the same vehicle forms, we look nearly identical. He's about five-hundred vorns younger than I am, but as neither of us has any sort of age-related rust, that's hardly a difference worth mentioning. We have the same medium-light military grade armor. His door-panels are slightly larger (to make room for more sensors), and his chevron is a different shape (that's purely cosmetic) though we keep them same bright red color. Of course he chooses a dark matte grey that absorbs, rather than reflects, long range sensor-scans, with maroon highlights for the rest of his plating, while I much prefer a more sensor-obvious and less visually flashy black and white pattern. I also have a light bar and claws. He eventually changed his optic color to a more Autobot acceptable light-orange while mine are still dark Decepticon-red. Otherwise we're functionally identical in appearance. Same city of origin, same model, same _factory._ There are other differences as well, obvious to one of our kind who are less reliant on mere optics to catalogue the differences that go deeper, and are so much more significant than the surface differences organics identified us by.

The largest structural difference is that he doesn't have the extra support on his struts that make me so blasé about ramming other vehicles. Instead he has a much more extensive sensor suite and an actual communications hub. I have stealth mods that silence my movement (for which I am named); he has an upgraded hydraulic system that allows him to remain motionless for orns on end. 

Our weapons are the other large difference between us. My custom low-energy hydraulic acid pellet gun, short-range pulse cannon, and pair of high-powered electro-batons are optimized for short range combat and melee, with only a standard issue ground-to-air missile launcher for combat against seekers. His missile launcher is designed for extremely long-range shots (with the proper targeting solution, he can hit a target beyond the curve of a planetary horizon) and can be loaded with a variety of custom shells; his Particle Projection Cannon can hit literally anything he has line of sight to, but he only has a standard issue energy sword for when he finds himself in melee. We both have TAG gear. Mine came standard with the installation of my tac-net and uses a standard issue green laser that can be picked up by anyone looking for targeting info; his is a customized blue laser (for which he is named) that can only be detected by someone using the proper frequency. I have an advanced tac-net; he has extra ammunition. 

I'm a front-line combat tactician; he's a sniper.

And I don't try and adopt _pets_.

"No," I told him before he had a chance to click on his vocalizor and start pleading his case for keeping the little long-nosed mammal hanging upside-down from one of his digits by a set of wicked looking claws. It was … chewing on one of the thin armor panels of his hand and the fact that it was managing to leave denta-imprints only strengthened my resolve. Even if it was capable of surviving leaving the atmosphere and the trip through space, that thing -- whatever it was -- was _not_ coming with us.

"But Prowl…" his glyph modifiers were pleading, with overtones of _isn't it cute?_ and _I'll take good care of it_. "Please?"

"No," _finality - don't argue with me._ "You already have a pet, and it's one pet too many as far as I'm concerned."

"But you like Shiny."

 _Shiny_ was an H-1ME Battle Mechanic drone we -- Bluestreak scavenged seven vorns ago. I was skeptical at the time, but for all that it was the unsparked creation of some probably-dead organic civilization with an utterly glitched excuse for an AI, it was useful. I didn't so much _like_ the thing as much as acknowledge its that one or the other of us would have returned to the Well of All Sparks a long time ago without it and thus I tolerated both its eccentricities and Bluestreak's insistence on treating it like it was borderline sentient. And also, "'Shiny' could be modified to run off of energon and operate in a total vacuum."

As if it knew we were talking about it, the little ball shaped drone scurried around on it's half a dozen leg-like appendages, warbling in it's high pitched exceedingly simple binary code. "Hi Prowl. Hi. Hi. Hi! Hi hi hi hi hi!" I ignored it as it fearlessly clambered up my leg, pulling out glass shrapnel and re-soldering severed wires as it went. "Look! Look! Where'd you get all this shrapnel? Were you in a fight? With who? Who? Who who who who? Who hurt my Prowl? Because I will TEAR THEM TO PIECES!"

This from a drone about half the size of a Xandaran. Completely glitched.

It could also be disassembled, stuffed into one of Bluestreak's smaller missile-pods and fired into active combat where it'd start welding me back together even as some Decepticon insisted on shooting me to pieces. So useful, even if it occasionally tries fighting said Decepticon with its micro-welder. 

Bluestreak's current prospective pet -- not useful. The complete opposite of useful.

"It just eats plants," the grey mech said pleadingly. "Plants are everywhere. I'll just make sure to carry enough to get us to the next planet."

Given the way it was happily gnawing on Bluestreak's hand, I wasn't so certain that it's diet consisted entirely of the local flora, but I wasn't going to argue _that_ point. Yet. "Plants with this composition of carbon based sugars only grow on M-class planets with a nit-ox atmospheric mix," I countered. _Don't argue with me._ "It could be a vorn before we land on another one. And what about water? Diseases? Atmospheric pressure, or for Primus' sake… _Air?_ Do we really need a repeat of last time?" His sensor-panels drooped, almost folding flat against his dorsal plating. I stripped a gear in annoyance and gentled my tone. "I'm sorry Bluestreak, but we really can't take it with us. It'll be happier here anyway. Maybe it has a mate it'll want to return to whenever its mating season starts."

That perked him up. I'd have been more pleased if I didn't know that it was at the idea of finding a second disturbingly grabby little mammal, rather than any happiness at leaving the creature behind. "You're right, Prowl. I don't want it to be unhappy." And to my relief, he gently disentangled the creature from his hand and attached it to a nearby tree, where it started chewing on the branch it was attached to exactly as it had been Bluestreak's hand. "So… how'd it go? Did you find anything before they captured you? That was a good shot; right through the window. You're lucky they put you in one of the rooms on this side, or I wouldn't have been able to get a proper line of sight for a clean rescue. You picked up my shell, right? I've got more, of course, but we really don't have the materials for manufacturing new ones right now. I hope we get some too, but even I can admit that the capital of the Nova Empire isn't the place to set up a micro-forge, even if we had the metals. Which reminds me we need to replace the…"

I just listened and made my way to the small stack of cubes the energon converter had been accumulating, and consumed one. Bluestreak could talk forever, the chatter actually making a fairly good substitute for a more formal after-action report, but eventually he'd either start repeating himself or change the topic. We could start going over the data I'd collected then.

I have the utmost respect for Bluestreak, both as a warrior and as a mech of honor and courage. Anyone who could (alone, disarmed, with an empty fuel tank, in shock, and surrounded by Autobots) tell Prime to take his hypocrisy and _shove it_ was not someone I ever wanted to be on the bad side of. And _having_ the utmost respect for him, I've learned that there are just some programming flaws I had to learn to live with.

 

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Fun fact: In comparison to every other sentient race out there, Cybertronian civilization is _really old_. I was about a two-thousand vorns old when Megatron declared war on Prime and the senate. That was about three-thousand vorns ago, and I'm considered to be what an organic might call "middle-aged" by the standards of my kind: old enough to have earned some respect based on experience lived, but not yet developing physical deterioration due to that age. As an example, Asguard, the oldest interplanetary polity in this region of space, is only two-thousand vorns old. The escalation of our war, and Megatron and Prime both recalling the interplanetary militaries to fight for them, was one of the major factors allowing them to come to power. That's not the fun part.

The fun part is what this means for the perpetuation of technology. The computer technology of every space-flight capable species we've ever encountered has been inherited in part or in whole from us. Yes. At it's core, it's all Cybertronian technology. All computer codes are based on our codes; those species that program in base three, or five, rather than base two still draw some of their programming language from Cybertronian. Even if a species doesn't initially use tech derived from some bit of Cybertronian wreckage, once they become space-flight capable and encounter other species, they start using bits of what _everyone else_ is using because its easier than coming up with a completely unique way of doing the things they haven't figured out.

Including the Nova Corp Worldmind. In fact that particular AI was built around a salvaged Praxan Foreign Affairs tactical projection computer and its core personality utilizes the original AI. Its original name was Naegi IV and it was part of the _Arcadia-13_. My ship, lost before the Civil War even started. It doesn't remember its origins, its original purpose, or even its actual name, but it still responds to its original override codes. It can protest, delay, obstruct, and obfuscate. It can send its Nova Corp minions after me. But in the end, it really has no choice but to fulfill any requests I make of it and give me whatever information I desire.

How's that for a "war crime"? The squishies should be grateful I didn't just crash their entire system to cover my hack and send their pathetic excuse for an interstellar empire crashing to back to early spaceflight. But no… that would be _deliberate genocide_ and not only am I a self-righteous, sanctimonious Autobot, but it would take a dozen vorns for Bluestreak to stop looking at me with that horrible kicked turbopuppy _look_. 

"So while the squishies may be operating under the delusion that they caught me before I could finish hacking their precious mainframe, I can assure you that I got everything I wanted before my capture," I answered Bluestreak's idle question of whether I was sure I'd gotten everything.

The data flickered between us as a map of the Nova Empire and the surrounding space with several places highlighted. I was projecting the hologram from my optics so we could discuss it, though we'd networked long enough to share it in its entirety. Bluestreak wasn't a tactician and did better with a visual aid. Just the way he was wired; blame the Allspark. Move on. "Of course, Prowl. I didn't doubt you at all. It's just that it would have been awfully inconvenient for us to have to go back for anything, so I just wanted to make sure that we had everything." He examined the data, tapping one insubstantial marker and I obligingly magnified the image of the planet to replace the larger star map. Blurry holographs taken from destroyed security and traffic cameras flickered around the planet and the reports, translated into neat Cybertronian text, scrolled through the air between us, until he finished reading my analysis at the end. "I agree… short skirmish," which wasn't what the squishies said about the incident; their words tended more along the lines of _full-scale battle_ and _untold destruction_. "No more than four transformers total -- oh! Look! Is that Skywarp!" It was. It was almost impossible to identify a Cybertronian with just visual information, given that changing the vehicle form changed all but the most distinctive features, but really? He was bright purple and a klick later he used his signature ability to warp out of the way of a pair of missiles. The Autobot cyclo-craft pursuing him was harder to identify. "I think that's Drift."

"Forty-one percent chance it's Drift; thirty-nine percent chance it's Springer. Seventeen percent chance it's actually two Autobots -- a medium vehicle and a small cyclo-craft -- and the appearance that both forms were the same transformer is an artifact of the primitive recordings and the chaotic situation." Bluestreak just smiled at me, brushing me with his EM field in uncomplicated affection. "Three percent chance it's one of the other Autobot triplechangers," I finished lamely. What was I supposed to _do_ with Bluestreak's affection? I tolerated his programming flaws; he _loved me_ for mine. "But that's not what we're looking for."

"No, you're right. And there isn't any reason to go check it out further. That was two decaorns ago -- they'll be lightyears away by now." He flicked his door-panels sadly. "It's just nice to know that some of them are still alive, y'know?" I canted by own reassuringly. What attachment I'd developed to Autobots besides Bluestreak had been deleted or archived in the vorns since the Allspark's launch into space, but it was good to know that we weren't the last two left. Even I didn't like the thought of being alone in a universe full of enemies, if only from a tactical perspective. "I like Drift."

Okay. Changing the subject now. "I think this," I brought up another set of reports, these only an orn old and much closer to Xandar than the incident between Skywarp and maybe-Drift, "is what we're looking for."

Bluestreak looked over the reports. Wanton destruction spread out over three planets and half a dozen destroyed star ships. Entire planetary militias turned into scrap metal. Hundreds of conflicting reports from civilians and military survivors. Fuzzy, blurred snapshots from salvaged surveillance cameras showing at least a dozen different vehicle forms and only blurs of transformation and movement for primary forms. Nova Corp was guessing this was the work of a squad of at least five to eight Decepticons, but we knew better.

This was the work of only a single one of our kind, on of the very few so-called "Single Transformers Assault Groups". A one-mech army. And this one's destructive capability and the way he reveled gleefully in outright murder were both the stuff of legend. He was an enemy Bluestreak and I knew very well.

"Sixshot," Bluestreak growled angrily. My combat systems hummed in agreement. 

 

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(tbc…)

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The H-1ME Mechanic Droid is also from Star Wars. It's about the same size as an astromech droid and fulfills the same combat-repairs function for ships that don't have space for an astromech. My rpg book describes their AI personalities as "daredevil", "possessive of the machines under their care" and "fearless". And that trick of firing them into combat stuffed in a missile shell… cannon.
> 
> Bluestreak's Particle Projection Cannon (PPC) is based on a battletech weapon that fires a concentrated stream of protons or ions at the target. It's a nasty weapon, capable of practically vaporizing smaller units, accurate at extremely long ranges, and in the Mechwarrior video games really frags up your sensors when you're hit with one. But it's heavy, which is why Bluestreak doesn't have a second arm-mounted weapon like Prowl does. It's also produces a distinctive "lightning"-like beam.


	3. CHAPTER TWO

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Either I'd been less than diligent about remaining under cover, or some passing satellite got lucky. I'd just settled down for a half-joor of recharge before we took off to find Sixshot. Bluestreak and Shiny were chittering back and forth to each other like a pair of mating birds while the drone continued repairing the dents and dings I'd taken during my chase through Xandar City earlier. It was surprisingly soothing to listen to…

PROXIMITY ALERT! TARGET LOCK!

Motor systems booted, then combat, then tactical. A sequence that saved lives when evading a target lock.

With a curse, we scattered. I summersaulted into my air car form and rocketed upwards. Shiny, still popping dents in my hood armor, made an audio-piercing shriek as it ended up lodged in between my engine and my landing struts on my undercarriage. The missile followed me, the target lock still engaged. That was good; the alternative was that it was going to hit our energon converter and that thing was _slagging irreplaceable_. 

It was also very, _very bad_. 

I took off towards the Nova Corps ships I could now clearly see coming at us from orbit. I'd have liked to lead the missile back to them, but slag, it was faster than I was, so instead I ducked down into the trees, weaving between them and they exploded behind me. Wooden shrapnel peppered my aft. A second explosion heralded Bluestreak's, ah, _emergency deactivation_ of the second missile with one of his own. Then I swerved back upwards to meet our attackers. I needed to meet them, needed to give Bluestreak the chance to pack our converter and the cubes of energon we'd been stockpiling. I flipped on my lights and sirens; I wanted their attention.

"Let me out! I want to help! Help help help. I help!" Shiny chittered, wiggling to try and free itself. I didn't have the attention to spare to shift the strut to release it, but it'd free itself when I transformed. "STAY AWAY FROM MY PROWL!"

I dodged laser fire and missiles. Nothing got so secure a lock again as I closed the distance. Or maybe they'd only had the two missiles? Didn't matter, as long as I didn't stay still enough to be targeted. I wanted to be in close. As an air car I had no weapons, and the ships -- single person fighter-crafts; about the size of a large seeker -- were much bigger and more heavily armed than I was. So I shot strait through their formation. They scattered, turned to follow, as I transformed.

Free fall. 

For a moment, I was weightless, inertia carrying me upward and gravity dragging me down. Perfectly balanced between the two, I spun, _targeting_. Two pulse-cannon blasts to the engine of the closest sent it falling away in flames as I painted another, further away, with the green dot from my TAG. Two of Bluestreak's missiles slammed into it a klick later.

Then I was falling, falling through their scattered formation and I twisted, spraying acid pellets into various parts and pieces of several more. Then I was below them again and with a command to my transformation sequence, I slammed back into vehicle mode exchanging my weapons for my repulser lifts. I had their attention.  

This time Shiny ended up magnetized by it's tiny feet to my rear bumper, where it screeched a constant stream of invective at the ships attacking us and pulled tree-shrapnel out of my undercarriage.

Two down, thirty to go. And more coming. I snarled as a laser blast tore through my exoskeletal force field and scorched my hood. 

"SLAG-SUCKERS!" Shiny screeched, scurrying over my plating to get to the new injury, which was a decidedly odd sensation. The first time the drone had done this, I'd been afraid that the thing was going to get flung off and Bluestreak was going to kill me for losing his new pet; now I just continued maneuvering, swinging around and ramming through one of the ships. "I'M GOING TO SHOVE YOUR WINGLETS INTO YOUR AFTERBURNERS!"

Seriously? Glitch.

"Packed!" Bluestreak called, and a moment later I heard the sound of his engine joining the battle. We drove in formation for a moment as I chirped a plan at him and he acknowledged, then we angled away, picking our targets. 

I gunned my engines, chasing one of the star-shaped ships up, and being chased by a dozen others. Laser blasts peppered my aft and Shiny cussed at every one. My target went strait up, accelerating to exit the atmosphere. Friction heated my shields and plating, but I couldn't follow, not without a few a klicks to warm up my exit jets and calculate a launch vector, but I didn't need to. I transformed, spun in that moment of weightlessness again. One of the ships following me exploded from the pulse shots, another angled away with acid eating through its cockpit window. The third -- directly below me -- tried braking but only managed to not kill us both when it slammed into me, jarring me down to my struts. Ow…

But I'd planned on the impact and latched onto the ship, digging my claws into its armor. It jerked and spun and tried to dislodge me, and with a snarl shot the cockpit glass twice, then punched through the acid weakened bubble. I grabbed the squishy and tossed it aside.

Without its pilot, the ship began to fall. It and I spun crazily, evasive maneuvers I could not have intentionally replicated. Shots rained around me, the other pilots trying to bring me down and kill me. Most missed, or hit the larger starfighter I clung to. Some sizzled against my shields; others penetrated to my plating, each setting off a new wave of binary-code threats from the repair drone clinging to my armor.

I didn't care. I extended a networking cable from my wrist and plugged it into the ship's computer. It took a klick for the plug to reconfigure to fit the port -- a klick I spent frantically counting the rapidly decreasing distance to the ground -- then my systems synced. Yes. Hello there. No AI; that makes things easier. Firewalls? Um… no. Let's just get rid of those. Access codes? No time. Let's just erase your operating system… loading new system… rebooting… maneuvering thrusters online… navigation online… _primary engines --_ _there!_

Engines gunned, shooting a jet of flame from the exhaust vents, and the star shaped ship rocketed towards space, rapidly achieving escape velocity. At the edge of my sensors' range, Bluestreak and his own captured ship did the same. I rerouted all my available power from my weapons to my shielding. I couldn't deploy atmospheric entry flak-armor without releasing my grip on my hijacked starfighter and transforming to cometary. I could only hunker down to reduce drag, channel every drop of power I had to my shields. and pray to Primus it was enough.

My world became heat. Fire flickered over the energy field. Camouflage nanites burned away. Metal armor softened and annealed. Wires melted. There were enough alerts on my HUD from my cooling system to double as an entertainment district's advertising. I couldn't see. There was nothing on my sensors but fire, and all I could do was hold to the course I'd laid in.

Then atmosphere became space and heat was replaced by blessed cold. I tossed away the ship, sending us careening in opposite directions, where it crashed into one of the ships that still chased me. To my left, Bluestreak released his lift, its original pilot secure and none the worse for his role in our escape. Scared shitless, or maybe unconscious from the G's, but none the worse.

He chirped his status to me: minor injuries only, most of them related to our unorthodox orbital launch. I chirped mine back: the same, but with the the addition of some shrapnel wounds and laser scoring on my armor. Neither of us had injuries to our transformation circuits or interstellar drives, so together we triggered the sequence that would shift us into our tough, heavily armored and shielded cometary forms. Most of the Nova Corps ships were still pursuing, struggling against the g-forces we'd pulled to launch, but some were buzzing around shooting still. Cometary forms were nearly indestructible though so we ignored them, accelerating further away from the planet to keep from being overwhelmed. 

At ten G's of acceleration, they fell behind quickly. Inertial dampeners could only compensate so much, and a Cybertronian could withstand G-forces that would turn even a biometrically enhanced organic into paste.

Shiny sung softly to itself, the warbles and beeps vibrating down its appendages and into my plating, unbothered by either the uncomfortable launch to orbit or cold vacuum. Whatever race had originally built it had built it to be a tough little drone. The meaningless melody was the same one it sang whenever we were traveling and was becoming as familiar as my own sparkpulse. It scurried across my plating repairing everything it could reach, and in a few joors, Bluestreak and I would maneuver closer together and allow the drone to repair "his Bluestreak" as well.

"So Prowl," my communication system crackled to life, "Were there any other maybe-Autobot sightings in that data you collected? 'Cause I'm curious. No one's heard from any of the gestalts in a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if the Protectobots have managed to pick a planet and blend in all this time, but the Aerialbots should have popped up at least once. I hope they're okay… Wanna play a game? We can play a game. I spy with my little radar sweeps something that's --"

"Me."

"What? How'd you know?"

"There's nothing out here but space rocks, Shiny and myself. With so few options, ninety-six percent of the time you choose me for the first round. When you are referring to me, sixty-four percent of the time you use the adjective 'grey'," the outer plating of cometary forms were alway grey, devoid of easily damaged chroma nanites,  "Twenty-two percent of the time you use 'metallic'. And ten percent of the time, when you wish to be extremely difficult, you use the word 'moving'."

I refrained from mentioning the remaining four percent, when he used the word 'beautiful'.

The comm line buzzed as Bluestreak giggled. "Okay! So now it's your turn. What're you going to make me guess?"

I did a radar sweep. There really was nothing out here. We were above the elliptical plane of the system so there really was nothing except a single comet and a couple of meteors. There was, of course, Xandar's star, but the rules of this game had been agreed upon dozens of vorns ago: only things that were within a radar sweep were usable options.

Finally I chose the comet. It had a higher than average heavy metal content. "I spy with my little radar sweeps something that's metallic…"

And that's how we left Xandar behind. We had no reason to stay. This entire amusing side trip had been for the sole purpose of tapping the Nova Empire's vast network of information. I'd needed an updated star map and the reports of recent Cybertronian activity, and the Nova and Kree Empires had the best of both in this part of space (Well, there was Asguard, but well…). 

We spun up our FTL drives as we entered what could be called "interstellar space" -- space too far from any inhabited part of the system to bother patrolling or protecting and free of any system-related debris -- three breems later. I chirped the jump calculations to him, and we triggered our FTL drives.

**_JUMP_**.

Sixshot had evaded us before, but now we were back on the hunt.

 

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(tbc…)

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ummm… yeah. those are Battlestar Galactica FTL drives, cause… reasons. Sufficed to say, transformers can copy anything they want to. The BSG FTL can be put on vehicles the size of a medium transformer (Cylon Raiders are only about the size of Jazz in his cometary form, and both these bots are larger), and still has some serious limitations I might use later.
> 
> And swinging back to drawing inspiration from Battletech: This version of Prowl's tac-net works like a mech with multiple C3 Command Units, which can connect to other units that have C3 Slave Units (which in this 'verse, an equivalent system is part of a Cybertronian's standard combat systems) to share targeting data. I played some large-scale (company or larger) combat games using C3 networks, long range sniping units, and some heavy scouts with TAGs. It's pretty brutal. If you play Battletech, try it. It's pretty brutal. It makes hitting targets at very long ranges incredibly easy, and that's how I'm picturing Prowl and Bluestreak operate in combat: Prowl gets in close and his tac-net tracks all the targets he's in combat with, and Bluestreak uses that targeting data to pick off his targets.


	4. INTERLUDE: Centurion Irani Rael

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"Sir." She saluted crisply. No hint of her true feelings about this meeting showed anywhere on her face or in her stiff, formal posture. It certainly wouldn't do for her to show Nova Prime of all people that she would rather be _anywhere_ but _here_.

She'd had a plan, before this command phrased as a polite request had been relayed to her. That plan had been to stop at the nearest temple on her way home and light a block of incense in appreciation to whichever god had obviously intervened on her account, then go home and sleep (albeit with a alarm going off every hour to wake her) as the medics had commanded. That plan had not included a personal debriefing from Nova Prime, and she was not happy about the change.

She was incredibly lucky to be alive. Lucky the robot hadn't crushed her when it grabbed her. Lucky one of the other pilots had had the skill to catch her relatively gently on his wing. Lucky she hadn't fallen unconscious… lucky all around. 

Anyone of a lower rank than her would not have survived, she'd been told over and over again, and she believed it. Her entire left side where she'd slammed against the wing of the ship that had caught her was one big bruise. The medics had declared that even for a Centurion it was a miracle that there weren't internal injuries, or more broken bones than just the cracked ribs, which they'd wrapped tightly enough that breathing was difficult. Then they told her to stop taking up room in their med bay, because there were patients that were less obviously favored by the gods that needed the space, and in the mean time, try not to breathe too deeply or she'd aggravate the cracked ribs. Not that she wanted to breathe too deeply. The bruising made it hurt like hell.

But she was not complaining. Not to _Nova Prime_. So she'd steeled herself, pulled her platinum blond hair into something approximating a neat ponytail, rather than a tangled heap, scrubbed the soot and dirt from as much of herself as she could, pulled on a new uniform, and reported to his office.

Keueitt returned the salute, then gestured for her to sit. "There is no need for you to aggravate your injuries on my account." His voice was as smooth as Atrian honey. "Please sit. Thank you for coming."

"Of course Prime." Any other time, Irani Rael would have declined such an offer from her commanding officer, but today she took the chair and sank into it gratefully.

He took the chair across his desk from her. "I would have preferred to allow you at least a few days to recover from your ordeal, but the Worldmind has decided that this is of the utmost urgency. You understand that none of this can leave this room" 

"Of course Prime."

A spreadsheet flickered into the air between them. "Please, tell me what you see."

Leaning forward hurt too much, so she settled for scooting to the edge of her chair to get as close as she could to the hologram.

The Worldmind collected facts, figures, data and nothing it collected was ever forgotten. This was two thousand years worth of transformer activity. The first column seemed to contain what the Worldmind believed to be attempts by Transformers to hack the AI network on which the Nova Empire depended so heavily, within that timeframe. It seemed that one of the robots tried it once every five years or so on average. It sorted the attempts by how successful the hacking attempt was, and Prime's insistence on secrecy made sense. Nine times out of ten, when a transformer hacked into the Worldmind servers all but the innermost firewalls, the ones maintained around the core AI, were ineffective. Only physically cutting the connection seemed to deter them.

The second column correlated that data with the name of the culprit, in cases where the transformer in question was a known quantity. In the vast majority of the attempts, though, the Worldmind could only show the closest transformer activity to the place and time of the hack, resulting in multiple suspects for that incident. About half of that column was blank: no way to know or speculate as to which of the robots was responsible.

And if that weren't disturbing enough, of the dozen hacks the Worldmind classified as "most severe", the ones that breached even those innermost firewalls that protected the core AI, the transformer they'd caught and lost this week had been caught in the act three times. In seven of those most severe cases, Prowl had been involved in other transformer activity that placed it nearby at the time of the hack, though no transformer had been identified as the definitive culprit. The remaining three had blank spots, the transformer in question disappearing without a trace. Only a handful of times was it identified as being nearby in association with a less severe hack. Twelve times in two thousand years didn't seem like many to a Xandaran, whose lifespans ranged from 80 to 130 years, but for an event that before right this moment Irani had believed impossible… She understood the Prime's need for secrecy all too well. And for in ten of those twelve times the same individual to be identified nearby enough to be the culprit, with no other overlap?

She could understand his urgency as well.

"I see it," she whispered. The Worldmind was sacrosanct. It protected them, and in turn they protected it. Here was evidence that there was a threat from which they had failed their duty to the Worldmind.

"Good," Prime rubbed the bridge of his nose with long graceful fingers. "The Worldmind has decided that the transformer Prowl is a priority Alpha target, and for the continued safety of Xandar and the Nova Empire, it must be eliminated. I'm assigning you to that mission." She straitened and nodded stiffly. "For you this takes priority above even the Kree. You will be given access to all the information we have on transformer activities since the rise of the Nova Empire, and any resources you require on your hunt, including personnel, will be given to you, to be overriden only by a direct and clear threat from the Kree."

"Yes, Sir." She stood and saluted, and he returned the gesture.

"Good," he smiled. "Now go home and get some sleep first. You're lucky to be alive."

 

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(tbc…)

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentioning now that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is all I know about the Marvel universe in general, and the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) is all I know about Nova Corps, Xandar, the Kree and the rest of the universe beyond Earth… so there might be a lot of blank-filling going on, some of it from other sci-fi universes.


	5. CHAPTER THREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I got a comment that Prowl was an arrogant jerk (which I totally agree with; he is) but Bluestreak wanted to show everyone what he sees in Prowl. He then took over my brain and wrote over 2,000 words of them playing a car-ride game I found on the internet.. On a related note, I'm removing the Unrequited Love tag, because apparently its not that his feelings aren unreturned; Prowl is just stubborn.
> 
> Then he wrote 2,000 more words about falling in love with Prowl; if your interested, and this chapter full of fluffy filler isn't enough for you, pop over to Love and Convictions.

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Cybertronian FTL hyperspace drives are huge, massive things attached to starships the size of medium-large asteroids. In fact, some of the most primitive early ships in our history were hyperspace drives attached to hollowed out asteroids. Even shuttle-formers have extremely large FTL drives. We'd just never bothered designing smaller hyperspace engines. Why would we? Shuttle-formers still needed to be large enough to carry either a few of us around, or cargo, or both. Plus there was some techno-babble based reasons why they couldn't be downscaled very far that made my processors hurt. I'd dutifully recorded Perceptor when he explained it, but quite frankly, that explanation could go suck slag. I was never going to replay it ever again.

Sixshot was the smallest mech I'd ever seen with an interstellar alt form, and in that form he was almost entirely hyperspace engines, tucked into barely enough armor to withstand the rigors of deep space.

Most squishies made hyperspace engines based on the same principles. Which meant even the smallest interstellar craft were the size of a small shuttle-former.

Fortunately, before the _Ark-31_ was shot down over Iunides by Decepticons and consequently totaled, we'd found the remains of some techno-organic space-dweller. Much of its internals had been disgustingly _squishy_ , but its exoskeleton had been hard, clean metal. So were its engines. Perceptor  dissected the thing, and when we'd discovered that it (smaller than our cometary forms) had its own, self-contained FTL drives I'd immediately required all of us to add them to our cometary forms. Interpreting the navigation systems was more difficult than transcanning the drives. They worked on a principle of folding space that (again, not replaying that recording) made travel between the intervening space both untraceable and effectively instantaneous.

We weren't trapped within a system, but it didn't stop me from wanting the _Ark-31_ back.

These FTL drives were just glitchy as the Pit. Using them required a specific metallic fuel beyond the energon our converter produced. So when we found tyllium deposits worth mining, we did so, and currently about half of both our subspace was filled with the stuff. Refining it wasn't difficult, but it gave our energon a metallic tang that in large amounts clogged our tanks and messed up our electrical systems when we were in primary or vehicle forms. Beyond the fuel requirements, it was glitchy. They couldn't be kept on standby for more than a four or five breems without breaking, and it took just over two to spool up from cold to standby. The navigation calculations had to be extremely precise, and even when the calculations were correct, the drives sometimes glitched and dumped us someplace completely other than where we wanted to be. Usually one of us slaved our drive to the other's nav system to keep from being separated if that happened, it was that glitchy.

Which is why I made the statement, "Unfortunately we're going to crash into a star."

It wasn't that we were _currently_ in danger of crashing into a star. It was just a possibility, something that would be very unfortunate, and thus in line with our current comm-line game as we searched opposite edges of the system for the trail that should be left behind by Sixshot's own, traditional interstellar drives.

"Fortunately our shields are impervious to solar radiation! We will be unharmed by the star and we'll have lots of fun surfing on the solid hydrogen sea of burniness!" He answered, also in line with the rules, even if it was ridiculous. This game was ridiculous. It was meant to be ridiculous. It wasn't so much an exercise in problem solving than it was a method of curbing Bluestreak's need for constant chatter while we searched the silent, empty system. Our FTL drives were instantaneous. Which sounds like an advantage, and it is -- when we are the prey. We leave no trail to follow in the space between our starting points and our destination, so even the limited maximum distance we could cover in a single jump and limited number of times we could jump continuously without glitching our processors were less dangerous than just things that we had to deal with. But when we're the ones chasing, with no idea of where our prey was headed… it turned tracking Sixshot into a complicated affair of determining his exit vector out of a system, calculating his likely destinations (or at least where he's likely to drop out of hyperspace to change directions), then searching each of those destinations for his next exit vector until we catch up to him. Less complicated than tracking us, given that we leave no exit vectors, but still time consuming. 

Eventually we'd catch up to him -- instantaneous glitchy-aft bizzaro space-folding jump drives covered the distance faster, as long as we didn't make too many wrong guesses in following the trail he left behind -- it was just taking a long time. And once Shiny had repaired and polished everything that could be repaired and polished, we'd stuffed it in its missile shell so that it was combat-ready in case we needed it, which left the open comm line as the only entertainment for either of us. Thus the game, at least in uninhabited systems where we didn't need to keep comm silence and pretend we were just two more space rocks in a system. 

"Unfortunately the universe's reliance on the color blue means that all the blue paint is going to used up to paint everything in sight and we're going to be sucked into a blue singularity." See? Bluestreak equals ridiculous statements, I swear to Primus.

_Fortunately_ , I was more adept at responding to his ridiculous statements, than I was at coming up with my own. "Fortunately neither of us are reliant on the color blue and thus can escape any blue singularity that forms nearby enough to be a danger. We'll change your TAG color if needed." I tried for a statement that didn't have to do with our current search. Prime's flashy blue and red pattern was the most ridiculous thing I could think of. "Unfortunately Prime's chosen colors scheme is just unfortunate."

Piling insults on Prime, the other Autobots, the Decepticons and the entire slagging war at the slightest provocation wasn't unusual for me, and didn't phase Bluestreak one bit.

"Fortunately we're out here, very, very far away from Prime and we don't have to look at him, right? I mean, it's nice, just you and me. You didn't like the other Autobots, and really, I can't blame you for that. They sure are loyal to Prime. Beyond reason, it seems. I like them well enough but I'm surprised you didn't just go neutral as soon as we were out of their sight, though."

"I swore an oath, Bluestreak. You know that."

"Yeah. Swore one to Megatron, too." his glyph modifiers were ones for _continued loyalty_ rather than _betrayal_ and _can't trust a traitor_. Had another Autobot said it, I would have ripped him to pieces the moment he brought up Megatron, but Bluestreak… The rough edges of this conversation had been worn off, like any annoyance I had once felt at the silly traveling games; he was the only Autobot who ever brought up my service to Megatron without suggesting that my loyalty to Prime was just as tenuous. "Only side to this war you haven't sworn to was Praxus, but since they didn't exactly _ask_ whether we wanted to be part of their militaries I suppose that's just their oversight, huh?"

Because in fact my loyalty was anything but tenuous. The last command Megatron had given me, before giving Starscream all the encouragement he needed to kill me, was: _There is no such thing as Neutral in this war_. A command I still followed. A command I would continue to follow until _both_ the glitch-spawn finally kicked it and and left whatever was then left of our race live in fragging peace.

Bluestreak's reasons were different, but in many ways he was the same. Loyal to a Cause both sides of a war claimed as their own, with nothing to really recommend one side over the other. Circumstances chose his side for him, just as they did mine. A different twist of fate, and the military-red optics he still had would be a declaration of loyalty, not a holdover from a past those around him would rather forget.

So anger at Bluestreak just never came into the equation, even for prodding at old, barely repaired wounds. "It's your turn," I gently reminded him, instead.

"Oh! Okay." The comm line gave a staticky giggle. "Um… Unfortunately there's a giant space tornado that's going to suck us up and spit us out in an alternate reality where you're an authoritarian rule-monger."

"I _am_ an authoritarian rule-monger." Of course there wasn't much use for rules and regulations with just the two of us. Protocol had its place, but not killing each other was more important.

"Nuh-uh. In this alternate universe, you _like_ being an Autobot."

I laughed. It was just so ridiculous. If I had to be stuck, alone with only one Autobot in the entire universe for company and back up, I was glad it was Bluestreak. Stupid games and all. "I suppose the alternate version of you likes being an Autobot as well?"

"Of course I do! And My favorite Autobot in the whole-wide universe is Jazz, who is the only 'bot who can make me laugh!" The best thing either of us had to say about Jazz was that he was a cold-sparked fragger, a chaos-bringer and murderer for the Cause, but he had not once ever pretended otherwise. For that alone, he was one of my favorites, even if we did not interact much. In truth, once my parole was over and they'd decided to stop wasting resources keeping tabs on me every breem of every orn, both Bluestreak and I had avoided the smaller silver mech. Being strung up in an interrogation cell was not something easily forgotten.

"Then it's fortunate that I have claws with which to rip our obviously glitched to the _Pit_ and back counterparts to twitching metal shreds." Vicious amusement bled from my voice. I really would enjoy killing that version of me, if he existed. I wasn't sure I could follow through on Bluestreak's counterpart, but… it was just a silly game.

"But what about being stuck in an alternate universe?"

"What about it?"

"Oh… okay. I suppose we'll just live there and find someplace to settle down until Prime and Megatron have settled things?"

"We'll return to Cybertron and conquer a city-state or two, carving out a place for ourselves as Decepticon Warlords," I said blandly, stripping all of the glyph modifiers from the words, something that most interpreted as stating an immutable fact, but I'd often used to signify a statement that could not be taken so seriously. "We will amass such a power base that both Prime and Megatron will unite to destroy us, but it will be to no avail. I will take the Matrix from Optimus' cold, grey frame make you my Prime." I was rewarded with another giggle from my companion. 

I stopped myself before I could suggest myself as his Lord High Protector. We weren't brothers; same model, different production lines. Different spark-batch. There was precedent for a -- no. Bad Prowl. Not thinking that. And it was time to change the subject, before he caught on to exactly how many times I'd had that particular fantasy. I am a soldier. I am loyal. I swore an oath to Optimus Prime. "Unfortunately," I struggled to think of a statement that didn't have anything to do with our glitchy FTL drives, the continuing frustration of tracking Sixshot, or continuing to discuss the possibility of Bluestreak as Prime, "that --"

"Found it!" Blustreak called out, rescuing me from making some stupid-sounding statement about the lack of meteors in this system. He chirped the coordinates to me.

Immediately I vectored to his position. As I came closer, he sent me a data overlay, showing the barely perceptible trail of ions left behind by a Cybertronian space craft. Sixshot. We followed the trail for the two and and a half breems it took for our FTL drives to spool up, which also gave me the time to calculate both the three most likely target systems based on that vector and the jump coordinates to the closest, the Aguin Lir system. For short jumps within the system, Blustreak calculated jump coordinates faster, so if we needed to make a combat-jump I slaved my drives to him, but my calculations were more accurate over the longer distances. The last thing I felt before we jumped to the next system was Bluestreak's faith in me as he slaved his systems to mine, an act of trust few Cybertronians had ever engaged in… before.

**_JUMP_ **

 

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(tbc…)

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… it seems that I'm assuming that when Optimus so dramatically takes off at the end of AOE, he's headed to the Ark-1 or another Autobot ship within the system. Sentinel's old ship's still where it crashed, isn't it?
> 
> And yes, that was a Cylon raider they found and copied to get their FTL drives. Don't ask me where they found it. Tactician is apparently a code word for obsessive stockpiler.


	6. CHAPTER FOUR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… um… holidays, writer's block (this chapter killed me), and finally getting Guardians of the Galaxy from Netflix… Happy New Year!

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We didn't expect to catch up to Sixshot in the Vudu Shaa system. We-- _I'd_ made some wrong guesses about his route and we'd wasted too much time searching systems the Decepticon hadn't passed through. Thus we'd expected to follow his trail into the inner system, sample the various reports of destruction and mayhem that inevitably trailed in his wake whenever he passed through an inhabited system, then follow the trail out of the system and start over.

We didn't expect to jump into a quiet system occupied by a Nova Corps fleet. Fraggit.

Still, it didn't change the parameters of what we had to do; it just made it more difficult in practice and, ultimately, less likely that our quarry was still in the system. Bluestreak and I separated, flittering out of formation on brief flares of maneuvering jets, and he chirped a pair of purely ballistic courses into the system to me, glyph modifiers indicating which was mine and which was his, and we allowed ourselves to fall in towards the interior of the system.

I knew Bluestreak would be frustrated at being unable to talk, but he's a professional and he held to the radio silence. I'd make it up to him later.

In cometary forms, it's difficult for even another of our own kind to distinguish us from just another piece of system debris except at extremely close ranges unless we maneuver; the Nova Corps ships glided out of our way, just as they would any other dense metallic meteor.

Difficult did not mean impossible.

Bluestreak's _targeting_ solution pinged my communications at the same time as Sixshot's "Gotcha!", and I barely flipped away from plasma blasts originating from the nearest starblaster.

And onto the Nova Corps ship that had just fired on me, where I transformed and clung to the gaps in his armor by my claws.

I _felt_ the other's engine snarl, the vibrations traveling up my arms, right as everything dissolved into pure chaos. Startled by our actions, the other starblasters buzzed us indecisively, uncertain about firing on me as I clung to their apparent ally. I tore at him, and he spun, trying to throw me off. We both snarled soundlessly, vibrations that screamed from my hands and feet where I was attached, but died when exposed to vacuum. He refused to give up his disguise, just yet, surrounded by potential enemies; I refused to let go. I did damage, I know I did, but had torn through little more armor when --

"Prowl!" _Targeting_ solution showing exactly from where the danger was coming.

\-- Bluestreak's warning cut through the battle focus. One of the starblasters had gathered its courage to fire and I launched myself away from the disguised six-changer in time for him to take the blast meant for me. I folded myself into cometary form and shot _through_ the brave pilot's ship and into the center of the fleet.

I tried to keep track of Sixshot. I really did. But well… without an IFF signal being broadcast or a close-in spark scan it's almost as difficult to identify one of us in a disguise form as it is to find us in cometary form. I had Bluestreak's view of the fleet as we dodged and wove around laser fire, cursing Primus and our luck as hits sizzled against my shields, but we both had enough other things to worry about to keep track of one starblaster in a fleet of a hundred.

Like surviving.

I snarled again, this time to be heard or felt by no one but myself. Frag. Space erupted into a maze of laser fire that was becoming impossible to avoid; shields would not last forever.

"Bluestreak," I commed as I slammed through another ship, the impact jarring my frame down to my core, even as I left the starblaster a flaming wreck behind me. My claws and ramming frame were the only weapons we had up here. Cometary forms were meant for space travel, not for space combat. Bluestreak was helpless. And eventually Sixshot was going to tire of pretending there were only two sides to this battle and come after us. "Calculate an entry vector."

Because he was faster and more accurate than I was when it came to vectors, velocities and gravity. It was time to take this someplace we could fight back. The ship I was about to ram slowed and spun out of the way; I refused to be deterred from my target and transformed, catching the wingtip with my claws and started tearing.

Despite the erratic movement of the ship I clung to and his own dodging and weaving, Bluestreak chirped a course to me less than a klick later; I spared the Xandaran inside a nasty death in space and launched myself away, folding into cometary and rocketing towards the planet. I allowed gravity to take me as I felt the planet's magnetic field pull me into a spin. Bluestreak was only a few meters in front of me.

Atmosphere hit like a solid titanium wall, and once again my world became fire.

During my off-world rotation when I was still part of Praxan Foreign Affairs, more mechs died during atmospheric entry than ever did by enemy fire. Cometary forms were designed to withstand it, but that only gave a mech a fifty percent chance of surviving it when a mistake was made; it was a singularly deadly experience. Too shallow an angle to the ground, and the stress of falling at near-terminal velocity through the thick blanket of atoms would burn through shields and plating and struts and the spark would die in fire, flaring as bright as a sun for a split second as you journeyed to the the Well; too steep and you'd hit the ground with enough force to vaporize even our fully metallic bodies (and probably lower the planetary temperature for _vorns_ until the dust settled).

Could you be charged with _accidental genocide_ if it was posthumous? 

I hadn't even double-checked Bluestreak's course; I trusted his calculations, but there was always a chance. I didn't doubt him, but atmospheric entry always made me contemplative of my own mortality. Undeniably large as we were compared the average organic, with a destructive potential that could be measured against their armies, we were dwarfed by the oasises on which they evolved. Physics did not forgive, and right now we were utterly at its mercy.

**_IMPACT!_ **

For a klick, my sensors were so scrambled I couldn't even tell that I'd survived. Automatically, vents, first small ones, then larger ones, opened all along my sides, venting heat into the air around me and drawing in the mixed nitrogen, oxygen and methane in to cool my body. About the time I was cool enough to consider transforming was when my sensors finished rebooting and I realized I wasn't dead after all.

But If I stayed in this crater long, I would be.

I unfolded from my cometary form and loaded the saved specs for my air car form, folding back down into the smooth black plating almost instantly. Bluestreak had landed almost a kilometer to the magnetic south; Sixshot, who I would have expected to take off out of the system now that he'd successfully pulled us off his trail again, was instead causing trouble and destruction in the nearest city. News reports and distress calls drummed against my comm system like pebble-sized meteors against cometary plating.  

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(tbc...)

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> … reviews help me write…


	7. CHAPTER FIVE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I can say is I’ve got serious writers block when it comes to this story… a couple words a week if I’m lucky…

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STAG. Single Transformer Assault Group. One-mech army.

Hyperbole? I wished.

Sixshot is a six-former. A transformer with six forms, not counting the universal cometary form he rarely used. I don’t have names to go with all of his forms given that he, like Bluestreak and I, changes them constantly, but I am familiar with his preferences. His primary form was the most versatile, with the most varied armament, good hand-to-hand capabilities, good mobility, good armor. His interstellar form was the most specialized and his only non-combat form. From the battle up in orbit, I knew his current jet-mode was a Nova Corp Starblaster. Beyond that, I’d have to run the analysis in-combat, but I knew he preferred to keep at least one tank-mode for long-range combat and a beast-mode for specializing in close-combat. 

He was an opponent that required Bluestreak and I to adjust our tactics some. I couldn’t get in as close to him as I usually did. I’d squish myself trying to ram him and that beast-form (or whatever his current close-combat specialist form was right now) would literally tear me apart. Yet I couldn’t back off and just rely on distance to protect myself and Bluestreak, because that tank-form (or whatever) would just blast us to pieces. The only good news about confronting him was that, while he was not an unintelligent opponent, he had none of the advanced tactical processors or training that either Bluestreak or I possessed. 

And that wasn’t even counting the complication that was going head-to-head with him in the middle of a swarm of Nova Corps Starblasters and other squishy law enforcement trying to pick off all three of us. Unfortunately, Sixshot was better equipped to handle the swarm of opponents than we were.

The terrain was, further, not one favorable to Bluestreak and my favored tactics. The buildings of the city were too high for him to set up someplace safely away and still reliably have the line of sight he needed to hit Sixshot, but not tall enough to provide the level of cover a sniper needed. The squishies’ city and Sixshot’s beast form would force us into a dangerous middle distance that favored our enemy.

We were still speeding towards the city, however. Suicidal? Probably. Already my processor had thrown up the statistic that _this_ plan had a ninty-eight percent chance getting us killed, while simply waiting until Sixshot finished killing off all squishies and confronting him when he was (hopefully) weakened gave us an extra fifteen percent chance of making it out alive. But no… rushing suicidally to our doom to save other species was something good little Autobots _did_ , and while I personally didn’t care even a little bit about this world, Bluestreak did. 

It was our compromise. These planets were valuable to the Autobot Cause (or whatever’s left of it) but not as valuable as the lives of the soldiers who fight for that Cause. When I order him pull out and let the natives fend for themselves, he does so so without question. That’s his sacrifice. Mine is that we at least _try_ , no matter how my calculations insisted otherwise. So it was for Bluestreak’s interpretation of Prime’s commands that we flew to the city Sixshot was currently rendering to rubble, with only a two percent chance of _surviving_ the encounter and it was for mine that we’d pull out before the chances of dying reached one-hundred percent.

Besides. We had a score to settle and neither of us was going to take the chance that a Starblaster pilot would get in a lucky shot and kill Sixshot while we stood on the sidelines.

Alright fine. That was the situation. Now to see about changing it.

Bluestreak found a usable military car that fit our needs first, right as we entered the city limits. Better still, it had a native, onboard weapon system like a small tank would and I rewrote a set of plans for each of us that would keep our most devastating weapons available, rather than folding them away to imitate the squishies’ useless pop-toy. I chirped his set back to him. He shifted into it immediately, so as to blend more easily into the swarm of opponents already surrounding Sixshot, while I only saved the specs. There would be a time and a place in this battle for disguise, but right now I needed the flight-grade hover more. We separated, connected only by the fast chirp of a plan and an invisible line of shared targeting data.

I flew over another, different, tank and immediately I was taking fire, as I knew I’d be. No Starblasters diverted from Sixshot to find me, thank Primus, but I had enough issues with tanks and squishy infantry firing at me as I passed. Nothing serious, but their communications lit up with reports of my presence, rippling outward from my flight path. One worried subroutine noted that they used my designation (a close Xandaran equivalent), but the majority of my attention focused on dodging. I turned on my lights and sirens, attracting even more attention and generating even more reports. It took only a second for those reports to alert Sixshot to my presence and the baying of his beast-form was distinctive, if only in the slightly mechanical fuzziness of the alien sound. 

In most organic languages the word “prowl” contains the connotations of stealthy movements of a predator on the hunt, searching for an prey or an advantage over prey, but Cybertron was a mechanical ecosystem without predator-prey interactions and so the word “prowl” contains more levels of exactly what it means to move stealthily. Or exactly what sort of advantages could be gained over one’s “prey”. In this case, I ran.

Sixshot barreled through vehicles and buildings in pursuit, first following the “scent” I’d left in allowing the squishies to report my presence, then following me personally. His beast form was just barely slower but was just as maneuverable as I was. Perhaps he was more so, but Starblasters dragged at his heels, attempting to catch him with enough tractor beams to halt him. He ignored them in favor of the tempting target I was presenting. He shot at me, blaster shots that would have stripped away shields, melted armor and ignited energon in my lines had they connected. His largest guns would be on his tank-form, of course, but all his weapons were formidable. 

One small Xandaran tank trundled out into the intersection ahead of us artillery gun languidly lining up its shot, brave or foolhardy. I juked and jinked to prevent either Sixshot or the Xandarans from getting a targeting lock on me and passed over the tank before I could take fire from it.

Unless we’re broadcasting an IFF signal and without a close in spark-scan we’re nearly impossible to distinguish in our disguise forms, even by each other. Sixshot and I were the only ones broadcasting Cybertronian IFFs and with the olfactory sensor of his beast-mode practically shoved up my exhaust pipe he wasn’t sparing the attention or energy on scanning for spark signatures. Sixshot ignored it as well, four mechanical paws scrambling right over the compact combat vehicle. Mistake. 

Bluestreak couldn’t miss from that range, PPC blowing a hole the size of my head strait through him. Armor melted and circuits sizzled and the beast-mode howled in pain as his hind legs faltered, most of the hip _missing_.

I transformed as I dropped to the pavement, skidding as I fought my own momentum. Acid pellets pockmarked Sixshot’s shields, but he ignored me, intent on Bluestreak who was now backpedalling down the street he’d come from as fast as his unfamiliar treads could carry him. I felt the distinctive signature of Bluestreak’s blue TAG beacon and I let a pair of ground-to-air missiles loose in response. They barely armed in time to explode against Sixshot’s shields, stripping them away and melting armor, leaving him vulnerable to my acid pellets. With a howl that turned to a roar of defiance he switched forms. I got off a couple more good shots before his armor finished rearranging to cover the damaged areas and his shields reset. He leveled his tank-cannon at Bluestreak.

Not happening. I transformed, buzzed him, dropped back into bipedal, grabbed the cannon and twisted, pulling his shot. His solid tank-armor turned to a treacherous morass of shifting parts beneath my feet and, though I tried to get away, I was caught.

_“Prowl!”_

Crushed. Snarling, I did the only thing I could do and lit him up with my TAG, green dot painting a target over his chassis, and firing off every weapon I had.

Everything exploded around me and with a roar he threw me. I had no control over my flight path and crashed through one building without losing momentum. My HUD fritzed and the last thing I was aware of was Bluestreak forcibly syncing my systems to his.

Dark.

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(tbc…)

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	8. INTERLUDE: Centurion Irani Rael

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, wow. It's been a while for this story hasn't it. I finally couldn't stand it sitting here, unfinished. Unfortunately when I came back to it and looked at my outline, it didn't make any sense at all. I was looking at what I remember had been a pretty epic b/romance and it might as well have been written in Greek. So in lieu of actually knowing where I was going with this, I'm bringing it to what I hope is a graceful end.

The dust settled. Neither transformer moved. Taking the chance that they were both down for the count, she ordered her men forward to secure them both. True she was hunting Prowl, but she hadn’t been able to simply _ignore_ the much more aggressive transformer that had started wrecking the city as soon as it hit planetfall.

Irani Rael had gone over every byte of data the Worldmind had on Prowl. She’d found that following this, highly aggressive, Decepticon would eventually flush out her own prey. It had been difficult to determine. This one’s ability to hold onto multiple forms simultaneously had often given the illusion that there were more of them than just one present, but she had done it. And now she had both.

All that data, once properly correlated had revealed that Prowl’s unknown partner was a sniper who had never come in close enough to be identified. She would have to be careful not to expose herself to another long-range shot, like the one that had freed Prowl on Xandar, but here in the middle of the city she felt safe enough.

Which she knew was a mistake, but without knowing where the sniper was, it would be almost impossible to guard against it otherwise.

Cybertronians were like Corossis Locusts, she’d been taught. They came, fought their war, leveled cities with their skirmishes, then left, not to be seen again for who knew how long. And there wasn’t much to be done about it. Capturing or killing just one took the cumulative firepower of entire armies, and a lot of luck. Finding just one alone to capture was almost impossible.

But all the data, rare as it had been, on Prowl’s partner and rescuer was that it stayed _out_ of direct combat. It hid in the hills like a coward, revealing itself only when necessary.

So she actually thought nothing of the tank-operator pulling up to the two transformers, to level its primary roof-gun at the massive Decepticon until it _stood up_.

Shouts of alarm went up, weapons were leveled. One shot triggered a hundred others from soldiers nearby, but the robot ignored them. The weapons pinged off its shield harmlessly. Like a monster from legend, they were beneath it. It’s focus was set on the Decepticon. Irani yelled for them to cease-fire and get some star blasters down here to capture it. It looked at her, orange optics burning into her skull, but then turned back to the Decepticon.

It flipped the ruined chassis of the robot over, though not without effort, until the robot was laying supine on the rubble, and Irani got her first real look at the damage it had taken. Even with that damage, she could hear it give out a sound that could have been… anything really, but to her ears it sounded like pain. Its optics were still lit.

The standing robot said something that sounded like gibberish and glass-shards being ground together. The winglike-appendages on it’s back flared in an aggressive looking manner. The robot on the ground said something in response, and with a snarl of what looked like rage, the victorious one shot the Decepticon. Once, twice, almost six times, before the light in the Decepticon’s optics finally went out.

It dragged the corpse over to where the building had collapsed on the other combatant.

“Where the frack are those starblasters,” Irani muttered and the robot looked at her again.

“Hi! Hello,” an unfamiliar voice said over the nearest communicator. “I’m sorry, but I’m kinda jamming your signals right now. It’s really not nice, I know and I wouldn’t, but I don’t want to be shot and dragged off by your starships. I’ve always liked Xandaran starblasters. So pretty compared to a lot of others. It would really be a shame to have to wreck any more of them. And Xandarans! I don’t like killing you either, so I’m just going to continue jamming you and we’ll be gone in a few… minutes. Wow, such a short span of time. But we’ll be gone in just a few of them and then you won’t have to worry about us or Sixshot again for a long while, k?”

The interrogative snapped Irani out of her stupor. Her soldiers scattered as she fearlessly marched up to the robot, who’d dropped the corpse and was now digging the other out from the rubble. “No,” she shouted, which drew the robot’s startled gaze. “Not okay! That one,” she pointed at the rubble, “is wanted for warcrimes against the Xandaran people and I have been tasked with its arrest.” And destruction she did not say.

“I’m really, really sorry we’ve hurt you,” the robot said again, this time directly to Irani rather than over the communications equipment, and she wracked her memory, trying to pinpoint an incident when the robots had ever _talked_ directly to someone and came up blank. “But even if you had authority over us, which you don’t, I couldn’t let you take Prowl. We are… all we’ve got left. I can’t lose him.”

“You should have thought of that before you brought your _fracking war_ to our worlds,” she snarled. The men around her were starting to look impressed. Centurion or not, the robot would squish her flat if it was so inclined.

“Do you think we _asked_ for this?” it retorted. “By the time we scattered across space, chasing and killing each other like beasts, the worst of our weapons had been destroyed. Warp cannons and sun killers… they’re gone now. Destroyed, but not before they were used. On _us_ . Our home is gone, our own planet dead and it was mechs like _them_ ,” it pointed at the corpse at its feet, “who killed it, before your race even crawled out of its primordial sea. And now they want to rape and pillage and destroy your worlds, and while he," again it indicated its companion, "thinks we should let them, leave, live out what's left of our broken lives in peace, he won't. For me and for loyalty, he won't. So no. Prowl is _all I have left_ . I will _not_ let you take him.”

It went back to digging while Irani stood there and gaped.

Something chittered in the hole and the robot chittered back. A small streak leaped onto the robot’s hand and she saw it brush it’s fingers over it in what looked like affection, then the little drone scurried back down to the other. The larger robot finished clearing the rubble away.

“You’ll never get past the blockade,” Irani finally said. In truth she was shocked; it had never occurred to her that anything beyond programmed directives might factor into the transformers’ behavior and enmities with each other.

The robot looked up at her and seemed to smile. “Our comet forms are very durable. He’s just unconscious right now, but he does have active interstellar drives. I can get us out of here.”

And with that he dumped the corpse in on top of the now-revealed lump of metal that she had to assume was Prowl’s space-travel form. The little drone scurried over the dead robot’s form, tearing at it viciously as it chittered. The awake robot crouched over the scene and connected to its compatriot with a series of wires that snaked out of its wrist.

A moment later they blinked out of existence. Gone again.

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end


End file.
